The proliferation and distribution of guns have nothing to do with black people. The answer to the so-called violence in black Chicago, or Los Angeles or other urban areas, is the elimination of poverty. We have 70 percent black male unemployment in many communities, along with crumbling public schools and deteriorating housing. The shootings that riddle some of our communities do not represent a problem of guns. This is a problem arising from entrenched poverty and oppression.

The founders were concerned with the tyranny of an unelected monarch of a foreign power, and their concern was with national defense, not self-defense. State militias (analogous to today’s national guard units) were for community protection, but the members were often expected to provide their own firearms. Thus the language in the Second Amendment, which mentions “well-regulated militias,” not “universally armed and unregulated individuals.”

But today Americans own some 200 million guns and have seen eight consecutive years of declining violence. The British, on the other hand, who are prohibited from carrying firearms and thus limited in their right to self-defense, have suffered a dramatic increase in rates of violent crime.

In fact, the individual's right to possess a means of self-protection is not granted by the Second Amendment or any other government edict, nor can it be taken away by government rule. It is the inherent right of the individual to protect his own life and freedom. It predates any government.

The Supreme Court, by an exercise of judicial activism, has reversed a longstanding interpretation of the Second Amendment and warped the public discourse on sensible regulation of deadly weapons in the hands of civilians. Our Founding Fathers, I suspect, would be appalled.

This kind of talk is familiar stuff from the gun nuts who buy their courage at gun shops. It's straw man nonsense of course. Nobody's proposed any gun confiscation, only some safety measures. It's also silly. If this latest be about self-defense of the sovereign states, somebody better tell Bazooka Bob Ballinger that the feds have The Bomb.

When I pulled into the parking lot of 35 Pleasant Street, it looked like any other suburban office building -- the kind of place where podiatrists look at feet and optometrists look at eyes. What removed it from the ordinary was a laminated sign in the lobby directing me to my destination. It depicted the white silhouette of handgun on a red background. Underneath was written "ctpistolclass.com," with an arrow pointed to the elevator.

But she describes ways she's dismantling the fear, and one step Stroup has taken may seem counterintuitive: She bought a gun.

Even though the sight of a gun after the shooting made her shake, she now hopes that very thing will bring a peace of mind that will allow her to go out to a matinee with her grandchildren or to the grocery store.

"If I had had a gun, I would not have gotten shot. I don't think I would have frozen. I think the training to use that gun would have overrode the fear," Stroup says.

In the last 20 years, we have seen the term "assault rifle" become redefined. Originally, this term meant a military firearm able to fire automatically at a rate of 600 rounds per minute (or more). The media slowly changed this term to mean any rifle that "looked" like an assault rifle. To be clear, the ownership of full automatic firearms has been banned to the general public since the mid 1930s (the national firearms act of 1934). The current rifles sold today only look like military assault rifles, as they are not fully automatic and have a rate of fire of about 1/5 that of a military rifle.

On Monday, the Colorado House will convene to consider, and will likely pass, four gun control laws that will strip Colorado citizens of their right to bear arms, guaranteed up until now by both the U.S. and Colorado Constitutions.

The debate over arming school personnel hasn't touched on what to do if confronted by a 10-year-old student with murderous intent. That staggering possibility hit the citizens of the rural Washington town of Colville on Feb. 7, when two fifth-graders were arrested and confessed to a plot to kill not only a female classmate, but six other children. Authorities found a semiautomatic handgun, clip and knife in the backpack of one of the boys, who complained that the girl had become rude and "really annoying." Police later overheard the two talking about killing whoever had snitched on them, too.

Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times penned an op/ed claiming that violent movies don’t make people violent, but instead are a “positive force.” Her diatribe highlights the mental disturbance that’s the result of hoplophobia. Here’s some analysis of her points, starting with: “A good deal of movie violence is designed as a way for us to experience it vicariously.”

"Since MoveOn.org evidently doesn’t welcome such a conversation on their video, I’ll do so here. I’ll send them a link to this column and invite Mr. Thompson to have his unedited say to address these questions, or to simply define how he defends the Second Amendment in his own words."

A church group chaperone got sick to his stomach and set his loaded gun on a window sill in the church bathroom, where it remained until a 17-year-old girl found it the next morning.

No one was hurt, and the holstered weapon had its safety on, Rev. Frank Moloney of First Christian Church told KVAL News.

The church made an announcement about finding an "expensive item" in the bathroom, and the man - visiting with a church group from Washington state, where he works as a sheriff's deputy - claimed his gun.

… Thanks for letting all of us Gunnies know beyond a shadow of a doubt that our boycott of your business was so successful:

The Second Amendment Foundation today announced that CheaperThanDirt has made an unprecedented contribution of $100,000, making the online sporting goods retailer SAF’s first-ever Diamond Level sponsor.

...

All this pro-gun stuff is a really nice try... but you will still never see one-thin-dime of my money going toward your business ever again.

A bill was introduced in the State Assembly by Felix Ortiz (D-Brooklyn) that would require citizens of New York to acquire liability insurance as a condition to gun ownership.

Bill S2353 will require all gun owners in NY to obtain and "continuously maintain" insurance coverage of at least $1 million, or they will suffer "immediate revocation of such owner's registration, license and any other privilege to own" a firearm.

If the citizen fails to obtain the insurance, then by simply owning the firearm, they will be in violation of the law.

This bill was introduced by Assemblyman Ortiz as an amendment to the current NY State Insurance Law.

Congress' latest crack at a new assault weapons ban would protect more than 2,200 specific firearms, including a semi-automatic rifle that is nearly identical to one of the guns used in the bloodiest shootout in FBI history.

One model of that firearm, the Ruger .223 caliber Mini-14, is on the proposed list to be banned, while a different model of the same gun is on a list of exempted firearms in legislation the Senate is considering. The gun that would be protected from the ban has fixed physical features and can't be folded to be more compact. Yet the two firearms are equally deadly.

QUOTES
TO REMEMBER

As an individual, I believe, very strongly, that handguns should be banned and that there should be stringent, effective control of other firearms. However, as a judge, I know full well that the question of whether handguns can be sold is a political one, not an issue of products liability law, and that this is a matter for the legislatures, not the courts. The unconventional theories advanced in this case (and others) are totally without merit, a misuse of products liability laws. — Judge Buchmeyer, Patterson v. Gesellschaft, 1206 F.Supp. 1206, 1216 (N.D. Tex. 1985)

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